Endpoint Power Production
Many problems currently exist for traditional power generation methods and systems. Approximately 95% of the current world's supply of electrical energy is produced from non-renewable sources. Alternative fuels are not practical sources for taking care of all the world's electrical energy needs. For example, solar energy power is too low, not reliable and very expensive. Wind energy is inconsistent, not dependable, expensive, and high maintenance. Geothermal energy requires specific locations to be used. Hydrogen energy has no existing infrastructure to support, distribution.
Global energy demand is increasing at approximately 2% per year. The Department of Energy has forecast by year 2020 that United States will need approximately 403 gigawatts (403 billion watts) and the world will need approximately 3,500 gigawatts(3.5 trillion watts of power). Still, there are more than two billion people in the world who do not have access to electricity.
Demand for electricity is outrunning capacity, and the price mechanism is the essential way to restrain demand and encourage supply. Therefore, the cost of electricity will keep going up.
Current electric utility companies are limited by production capacity to increase their electricity generation. To increase generation, these companies must build additional plants which require substantial capital investments, political issues of where to locate to the plants, lengthy permit procedures lasting several years, cost overruns, which make the traditional method of building additional plants undesirable.
Using nuclear power, oil burning plants, and coal burning plants, adds further environmental problems for those seeking to build electricity generating power plants. Thus, building more and more plants is not a practical solution.
Current energy conversion efficiency of any of these power plants is generally no higher than 30% (thirty percent) efficiency of the electricity produced from the energy source of the fuel(oil, coal, nuclear, natural gas). For example, turbines that generate the electricity from the fuel source at the power plants only generate up to approximately 30% efficiency of the electricity generated from the source.
Next, the electricity being transmitted loses efficiency while it is being transmitted loses energy(efficiency) over transmission lines(i.e. wires, substations, transformers) so that by the time the electricity reaches the end user, an additional 28% (twenty eight percent) energy(efficiency) is lost. By the time the electricity reaches an end user such as a home residence, the true energy efficiency is no more than approximately 18% (eighteen percent) from the actual energy source.
Co-generation heat is the amount of heat that is wasted in the development of the electric power at the plant because heat cannot be transmitted over long distances.
A co-generation combined system does exist where some of the co-generated heat produced from a gas fired plant is used to produce additional steam which then makes additional electricity in addition to the primary electrical generation system. This combined system can achieve up to approximately 45% (forty five percent) energy conversion efficiency. But there still are transmission losses of some 28% (twenty eight percent) so that by the time electricity reaches the end user only some 22% (twenty two percent) of the actual energy source is converted to electrical power.
The current electricity rate structure for consumers penalizes the consumers who must pay for the fuel being used to generate either 18 percent or 22 percent energy conversion efficiency. In essence, the consumer is paying for some 500% (five hundred percent) of the actual cost of electricity by inherent transmission losses that are generated by the current power generation systems.
The inventors are aware of several patents used for steam power generation. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,952 to Doland; U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,212 to Bell; U.S. Pat. No. 3,830,063 to Morgan; U.S. Pat. No. 3,974,644 to Martz et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,404 to Martz et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,479,354 to Cosby; U.S. Pat. No. 4,920,276 to Tateishi et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,624 to Amir et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,418 to Lott et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,422,017 to Basily. However, none of these patents solves all the problems of the wasteful energy conversion methods and systems currently being used.
Nonexistence of Supertropic Expansion Applications
At present, known thermodynamic changes of conditions of a system do not include supertropic expansion, which is defined as extracting more energy from an expanding gas, than what isentropic expansion gives for a given expansion volume ratio. In this way a vapor can be expanded far into the wet area of its ph-diagram, so a considerable amount of it condenses by doing work, instead of by cooling it to ambient waste.
Currently, it is not possible to convert moderate amounts of heat from external sources into mechanical energy. Steam turbines work on high rotational speeds that increase to impractical values when the machine is scaled down in size. Thus steam turbine sizes range in the megawatts.
Smaller displacement steam expanders would have a too low efficiency. The only alternative external combustion engine in the range of up to a few hundred kilowatts would be the Sterling engine, but it cannot be produced at a compatible cost in relation to internal combustion engines. Besides, as it only works on the specific heat of an inert gas over varying temperatures, the size of a Sterling engine potentially is much larger than for an according steam, or internal combustion engine and so it must work on very high pressure levels to increase the mass of gas contained in the cycle and thus to keep the machine size down. Again, leakage sets the technological limits, though likely economic ones do sooner.
A basic patent that issued to James Watt on Jul. 17, 1782 was an exceedingly important one, and of special interest in the history of the development of the economical application of steam. This patent included: 1. The expansion of steam, and six methods of applying the principle and of equalizing the expansive power. 2. The double-action steam-engine, in which the steam acts on each side of the piston alternately, the opposite side being in communication with the condenser.
FIG. 18 shows the progressive variation of pressure (of the volume j above the piston) as expansion proceeds. It is seen that the work done per unit of volume of steam as taken from the boiler, is much greater that when working without expansion. The product of the mean pressure by the volume of the cylinder is less, but the quotient obtained by dividing this quantity by the volume or weight of steam taken from the boiler, is much greater with, than without expansion. Watt specified a cut-off at one-quarter stroke, after which the steam expands the remaining three-quarters, as usually best. This would do a little more than double the effect, but it would too much enlarge the cylinder and vessels to use it all.
It was found that for the case assumed and illustrated here, the work done during expansion per pound of steam is 2.4 times that done without expansion. This indicated that Watt measured supertropic expansion, because otherwise the work ratio would have been slightly over two, as follows: Lets imagine a cylinder with 1 m2 area(One square meter) and a 4 meter stroke length, thus consuming 4 m3(Four cubic meters) steam of atmospheric pressure under full load per stroke and at 0.25 bar condenser pressure, giving 0.75 bar constant pressure difference over the piston. The work done would then be approximately 75 kappa ×4 m=approximately 300 kJ. With a specific volume of approximately 1.7 m3/kg for the applied steam, we get a specific work of approximately 128 kJ/kg.
As previously mentioned, the inventors are not aware of patents that solve all the problems of the wasteful energy conversion methods and systems currently being used.